Farmer calls for ban on helium balloons after they kill sheep
A farmer has called for helium balloons to be banned after one of his sheep was killed when a balloon came down at his farm.
Jim Mallender was performing a check on his stock with his wife when they came across the pregnant sheep with balloons hanging from its mouth. Sadly, she was already dead when they found her after she attempted to eat the balloons, which had fallen into the field.
According to Mr Mallender, this isn't the first time this has happened at his farm near Skipton, North Yorkshire. He also said he had seen two other posts on Facebook about this happening nearby before he took to the social media platform to share his own story.
He said: "We've always been picking up these helium balloons out of the fields forever, pretty much. Could be eight, ten-years-ago we lost a cow."
As a result, Mr Mallender wants both greater awareness of the potential risks of the balloons and he has called on councils to ban them, as many have with sky lanterns.
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"It's just, it's very frustrating and annoying. When you have livestock, no matter what type of livestock, yes, you end up with dead stock but you do everything you can to avoid that, or to try prevent that.
"But then, when it's an outside factor that many, many people are aware is an issue, and there's that element of society that basically don't care," he added.
After the death of the sheep, Mr Mallender took to Facebook and shared the story in the local groups of two nearby villages where the balloons may have come from, as they were upwind. He then saw, just a day later, in those same groups, people talking about getting more helium balloons, and he now believes more education is needed around the dangers.
He said: "This is where education is needed, because, you know, I want a Ferrari but I don't get one - and I know that sounds like a ridiculous analogy, but, from my side of it, 'I want a helium balloon I'm getting one', is just as ridiculous.
"Because, obviously, there are accidents and they end up getting away from people, it happens. We're aware this happens by accident a lot of the time and it's not a balloon release on purpose." Mr Mallender went on to say he would like to see action from North Yorkshire Council on this, just as many councils took action against sky lanterns.
He added that as well as the damage to animals and the environment, there is only a limited supply of helium in the world, and it's "far more important for other things".
He said: "Education is key, but education is key to a lot of these things, because if you start at the bottom and work up, if the kids don't want it because they understand it can kill stuff, then adults aren't going to buy them.
"Then when those kids become adults, by that time they're gone and don't exist anymore because it wasn't viable to produce them. Whether it comes in as a law or not, if nobody wants them, nobody's going to produce them."
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